Surgical instruments are required to be as sterile as possible. On the other hand, robots and drives can only be sterilized with difficulty due for example to lubricants, power take-off and the like.
One approach consists in making the instrument itself drive-less and to actuate it by means of a robot connected to it, for example moving an end effector such as forceps, shears or the like using remote manipulators. The drive-less instrument itself is easily sterilized. The non-sterile robot with the drive for the instrument is encased with a static sterile barrier. EP 1 015 068 A1 proposes an adapter attached to a sterile case of the robot, through which the instrument drive is mechanically fed.
If the drive is integrated into the instrument, as is also the case with the present invention, more compact robots can advantageously be used, as the feed-through of the instrument drive can be dispensed with.
Here however several problems arise: for one, instruments with integral drive are larger than drive-less instruments. This can make manipulation more difficult, in particular with several cooperating robots. For another the drive, which as a rule is non-sterilizable or sterilizable only with difficulty, is no longer shielded by the sterile case of the robot.